


queens of nowhere

by rainingroses05



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Post-Game(s), Romance, Sacrifice Arcadia Bay Ending, i should be sleeping right now but hey, kind of a mess but i just
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 06:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12184461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainingroses05/pseuds/rainingroses05
Summary: "And it feels like home now, and that makes it so much worse."Max and Chloe go back to Arcadia Bay.





	queens of nowhere

            They find an apartment, finally, after too long sleeping in her truck with blankets from Max’s parents’ house. The heating and the A/C and the lock on the door are broken, but Max shoves a chair under the door knob, and it feels like a fresh start.

            The first night she sits in the edge of the bed with her knees pulled up to her chest and Max pretending to be asleep beside her. She should sleep now, while she’s too tired to have nightmares, while she’s fresh out of sleeping in a car and fully ready to appreciate the comfort of an actual mattress, but somehow she can’t bring herself to actually put her head on the pillow and close her eyes.

            “Chloe?” Max rolls over next to her, propping herself up on her elbow and looking at her with half-closed eyes.

            “Yeah?”

            “Are you okay?”

            “Yeah,” she says, mostly because she wants to be. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

 

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Chloe learns three things in the two weeks.

            Number one: bad dreams actually don’t care if you’ve tired, if you’ve worked three shifts today and your feet hurt and you’re probably catching a cold. Maybe they even like you best that way.

            Number two: the number of people who have died in Arcadia Bay. It comes on the TV while they’re watching the news. Max has her head in her lap, and Chloe’s playing with her hair, and then there it is, scrolling along the bottom of the screen, large and heavy, and she doesn’t have time to change the channel before she hears Max’s breath catch in her throat. She changes it anyway. There’s a stupid movie on. Some sort of comedy. She can hear Max sniffling. They don’t talk about it.

            Number three: saying you’re okay does not make you okay. Maybe she already knew this one. It just seems like there should be a limit, like if you say, “I’m fine” enough times, the next time, you mean it. It doesn’t seem to work like that.

            She says she’s okay, and she also cries over the sink in the bathroom until she feels sick, and she can’t sleep during thunderstorms or eat breakfast at diners.

            Max says she’s okay, and then she falls apart while they’re sitting around listening to music, and she can’t bring herself pick up her camera, and her hands shake. She’s always shaking.

            Chloe picks her jacket up off the edge of their bed and pulls it on, pulling the sleeves over her hands. She can hear the scrape of wood in the other room as Max shoves a kitchen chair against the front door. It’s become a nightly ritual, but tonight the sound is particularly grating. Tonight, it’s too loud. Rain is pouring outside. There’s too much _noise._ “Why don’t we find an apartment that has a door with a goddamn lock on it?”

            There’s only silence in response, and Chloe winces.

            “Sorry.” She slips through the bedroom door and into the kitchen.

            Max has both hands pressed against the sides of the kitchen sink, staring hard at the drain. “It’s okay.” Her eyes flit to the side, clearly following other thoughts. Her knuckles are going white.

            “Max?” She places one hand tentatively on her wrist.

            Max flinches back and turns to the side, picking up a stack of plates beside her. “I’m fine,” she says quickly, the words barely out of her mouth before all the plates in her arms fall to the floor, breaking instantly. “Shit.”

            Chloe stares at her for a moment as she drops to her knees, frozen. She’s afraid to touch her, like if she does she’ll just turn to glass and fall apart. She takes a slow step forward, skirting around the broken glass. She kneels down and grabs Max’s wrist just before she attempts to gather the shards in her hands. “Don’t touch that. You’ll cut yourself.”

            “This is such a fucking disaster,” she whispers, staring at the shattered glass on the floor.

            “It’s fine. I’ll get the broom, okay?” She goes to stand, and Max grabs her hand, fingernails digging into her palm.

             “God. _God,_ what did I do?”

            She has a sort of faraway look in her eyes. She isn’t talking about broken plates now. Chloe stares at the mess. Everything’s such a _mess. “_ You saved me,” she offers. It isn’t enough. She’s not enough.

            Max closes her eyes, jagged edges softening. “I know.” She looks up suddenly, turning her desperate gaze on Chloe. “You have to know I’ll never regret that.”

            Chloe wipes the tears off her face with the back of her hand, cupping her cheek. “Even when we’re really old, and you’re sick of me?” she says, a hesitant laugh at the end, only half-joking.

            “Never.”

            “It’s going to be okay.”

            “Okay,” Max says, like she’d put all of her trust in that statement, and Chloe wants so badly to just _fix it_ for her.

            “I think we should go back,” she says all of a sudden, and she doesn’t know where the words are coming from, but it feels like they’ve been sitting for a while, in the back of her mind. She thought she’d never want to see it again, but here she is, suggesting they pack up there things and go back to the town that destroyed practically every good thing she’s ever known.

            “What?”

            “To Arcadia Bay. I think you need… closure or something,” Chloe continues, filling the tense silence, even though she’s not sure closure is a thing to want. Closure means not wondering anymore, but only because you know the worst of your fears is true. Or worse than the worst of your fears. But It sounds good, in theory. It sounds like a thing Max might need.

            “Okay.”

            “Really?”

            “If you really think we should.” Max rests her head on her shoulder. “If you’re sure you want to.”

            “Let’s sleep on it, okay?” Chloe says softly, helping Max to her feet and leading her to the bedroom. “We can talk about it in the morning.” She sees it when she closes her eyes, and she wonders if some part of her knew she wouldn’t be able to stay away.

 

\-------------

 

            It’s not how she pictured it. In Max’s daydreams- although they were a bit closer to waking nightmares on that spectrum- it was something that happened when they were older, and it was _time,_ even though she hadn’t quite worked out how they’d know when that was. But it certainly wasn’t an idea Chloe blurted out while she was crying on the kitchen floor.

            And maybe, in some small secret corner of her mind, she pictured one of them going back alone. One of them, staring wide-eyed at a town built on wreckage. One of them, shivering in the cold on the cliff. Because why would they go back to scar their hands all over again when they still had each other to hold onto? That would be illogical; it would be digging up things that are meant to stay buried under the rug of their just-big-enough-for-two apartment, under the stacks of cheap dishes and the “I’m fine”s, swallowed by the roar of the broken heater.

            Thank God there are some visions that she can’t trust.

            Chloe turns the radio up. She’s humming along to the songs she knows, like they’re going to a concert instead of a town-turned-graveyard.

            She goes quiet when they get to the sign announcing that Arcadia Bay, in all its glory, is right around the corner.

            They’ve arrived at the tail-end of the rebuilding efforts, too late to do any fixing but not too late to see that _yes, we were here._

            There it is, the kind of seaside town you’d like to see on a postcard but maybe not live in yourself, quiet, _pleasant_ , all its sins buried in wet earth beneath rusty cars. Most of the buildings look like someone took all their jagged, broken pieces, slammed them together, and said, _there, good as new._

            And there are flowers everywhere, strewn across doorsteps, littering the front porches of the houses that are still nothing but wreckage. Flowers and crosses and framed pictures.

            “Fuck,” Chloe says.

            Max braces herself as she slams on the brakes.

            The whole place is drenched in blood that only she can see. And she’s sure that if she got someone to test it, it would perfectly match the blood dried under her fingernails. 

            “Are we getting out of the truck?” Chloe whispers, and the dread in her voice seeps into Max’s chest. They’re parked in the middle of the road, but nobody seems to care. Or nobody’s around to care. There _must_ be people here in their houses, but it seems that everyone’s packed up and gone home, leaving their little charity case of a town to brave the night on its own.

            Max waits for a long moment before responding. Half of her is hoping Chloe will put the car in reverse, say, “Sorry, this was a really stupid idea,” and drive them back to their apartment with the music up too loud and the windows open. But Chloe doesn’t say anything, so Max says, “We have to,” and opens the car door, letting go of Chloe’s hand to step out into the road. The light washes over the houses, bringing with it a breeze that’s dizzyingly thick with the scent of rain. She stumbles, and the ground rises up to meet her, Arcadia Bay pulling her back into its core. _Welcome home, Max._

            Chloe kneels beside her while she wipes her hands on her jeans, asphalt dust clinging to her skin. “What happened? Are you okay?”

            “I just tripped.”

            Chloe has a look about her like she’s ready to bolt. She alternates between staring at Max and staring at the ground, never risking a glance at the buildings around her.

            Max didn’t want to look either. But now that she has, she can’t look away. She lets Chloe help her to her feet, gripping her wrists just a bit too tightly. She slides her fingers down into her hand.

            They walk down the street, silently picking the landscape apart, sorting it into neat sections. What was swept away in the storm. What has just appeared, what’s jarring and foreign and intrusive, somehow. And what’s remained, survived.

            Nothing about it feels like home. It’s surreal and distant, like she’s looking at it through the lens of someone else’s very high res camera. Maybe it’s _a_ home, but it’s lost all its inhabitants, and it’s sad and lonely and empty and awful. It’s _awful_.

            Chloe stops suddenly, and Max can hear her intake of breath in the suffocating silence.

            “What? What is it?” And then she sees.

            They’ve been wandering aimlessly, not so much lost as knowing exactly where to go and avoiding the inevitable arrival. And here they are.

            There’s not even a diner-shaped hole where it used to be. Just an ugly grey building taking up its space.

            “Chloe…”

            “It doesn’t matter.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. Her hand goes limp in Max’s, and she turns, pulling their fingers apart. “None of _this_ ,” she says, her voice rising, “matters.”

            “Don’t say that,” Max says gently. She brushes her fingers against Chloe’s arm.

            “I hated it. I hated it here. I hated this whole fucking-“

            “That’s not true.” She closes her hand around Chloe’s wrist, fingertips pressing into the coarse fabric of her jacket.  She kicks at the dusty road, scuffing her shoe on the asphalt.  It still has that too-white new shoe color on the toe. She suddenly wishes she’d worn the old, beat up grey ones sitting by the apartment door instead of digging these out of her closet in an attempt to finally break them in.

            “It is,” Chloe mutters through clenched teeth, her muscles tense against Max’s grip, like she’s just about to pull away. She never does. “It is true.”

            Max tugs slightly on her wrist, and she turns almost instantly, burying her face in Max’s thin sweatshirt. “It’s not.”

            “I wish it was,” she whispers. Her breath catches in her throat.

            Max wraps both arms around her waist and holds her tightly, waiting for her rapid breathing to slow. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Chloe.”

            Chloe lifts her head up, and Max wipes a tear off her face. “Don’t apologize.” She blinks quickly, wet eyelashes fluttering against the edge of Max’s finger. “It’s not your fault.”

            Max bites her lip.

“Do you want to walk up to the lighthouse?” Chloe asks, Max’s hand still resting on her cheek, and Max wants to say no because she’d rather never set foot on that cliff again, but it’s another one of those _we have to_ sort of things.

            So, she nods, letting her hand drop to her side.

            They make their way back to the truck, Chloe climbing into the front seat again. Max sits and tucks her knees up to her chest, not bothering to buckle her seat belt.

            Chloe stares into the rear view mirror for one long moment, and Max wonders if she’s considering turning around and getting the hell out of there, leaving skid marks on the freshly paved road. She steps on the gas, and the car lurches forward.

            Max stares out the window on the drive to the edge of the trees. Every time she thinks she’s had enough and goes to tilt her head away, to stare at her shoes, her eyes catch on something new.

            The drive is blissfully short, but the walk up the hill is longer than she remembers, the forest seeming to stretch on forever. She grabs Chloe’s hand as soon as they reach the top.

            The ocean is roaring down below, hungrily lapping at the shore, like if it really wanted to, it could swallow another piece of Arcadia Bay in its waves. It settles for devouring the sun.

            Max shivers. The sunset splashes bloody light onto the ground in front of them.

            “I want to go home,” Chloe says, and Max nods, and both of their feet remain firmly planted in the dirt, their eyes fixed on the water.

            Then Max has the sudden overwhelming desire to leave before dark, the thought of standing on this cliff in the night air- again, _again_ \- settling hard in her chest. She squeezes Chloe’s hand.

            The lighthouse casts one last long shadow over them, and Max tears her eyes off of the ocean to look up at it. It’s still half falling apart, which strikes her as wrong somehow. If it were up to her, it would have been rebuilt first. Not that they need it anymore. Not now, when Arcadia Bay is a ghost town, and there are no ships to guide to safety.

            (She wonders absently if there are still postcards being made with the lighthouse plastered across them, standing proud and tall and perfectly intact in front of a picturesque sunset).

            “This is so fucking strange,” Chloe says, whispering like they’re not supposed to be there.

            Technically, _she’s_ not. Technically, the universe had other plans.

            "If you don’t look at the lighthouse, it’s just like it always was.” Max isn’t sure if this is a comfort or not. Every time she tilts her head so that all she can see is the beach, it feels like a lie. “The bench is gone,” she notes after a moment, staring at the empty spot on the ground.

            Chloe nods. “The bench is gone,” she repeats.

            It sounds sadder when she says it.

            Everything is blurry and drowning until she blinks. And then she’s crying over a stupid bench.

            Chloe wraps her arms around her, letting her bury her face in her jacket. “I’m sorry. This was my stupid idea. We shouldn’t have come back here.”

            “I kind of think we had to.”

            At some point both girls silently decide that it’s time to walk back down the hill. Arcadia Bay gradually reappears through the trees, in small glimpses between branches, and then it’s all there again, laid out in the dying light. It looks fragile somehow, like the sun will go down and it’ll fall apart again, disappear in the rear view mirror of Chloe’s truck.

            And it feels like home now, and that makes it so much worse. This is her _home_ that she destroyed. _Chloe’s_ home. And it’s gone, but not _gone_ gone. It exists just to remind her of its absence, just to remind her that the _real_ Arcadia Bay is dust beneath their feet. They could never live their lives here, get a cute little apartment and jobs or go for walks on the beach or ride the bus to the grocery store every day. It’s not theirs anymore.

            “Is this what closure feels like?”

            Chloe pauses, considering. She opens the passenger side door of her truck, and Max climbs in, buckling her seat belt this time. “Do you feel like leaving and never coming back again?”

            “Sort of.”

            “Then, probably.”

            “Do _you_ feel like leaving and never coming back?”

            Chloe doesn’t answer until after she gets in the car and slams the door with more force than necessary. “Sort of.”

            “Are you okay?”

            Chloe turns the key in the ignition, staring hard out the window. “I just want to get out of here.”

            Max rests her chin in her hand, propping her elbow against the car door. She stares out the window, watching the buildings slip past. It almost seems like once they pass them they just disappear. She doesn’t look back. Out of sight, out of mind, or something.

            Chloe reaches over and takes her hand.

            It seems so strange how Arcadia disappears in the rear view mirror, like it never existed, when just a few minutes ago it was so _real,_ fading and fading until it’s gone.


End file.
